To provide a comfortable engagement with the wearer's face, swimming goggles are usually provided with cushion pads of resilient material mounted to the lens frames of the goggles to be in resilient contact with the wearer's face around the eye sockets. Conventionally, the swimming goggle cushion pads have two types. The first one is made of foam material and the second one comprises a suction cup like configuration. An example of the foam type cushion pad is shown in FIG. 1, comprising a foam pad 50 which is manually mounted to the lens frame 51 by means of for example adhesive. The suction cup type cushion pad is further divided into two classes, one being formed by manually fitting the cushion pad to the lens frame as shown in FIG. 2 and the other being integrally formed with the lens frame as a unitary member, see FIG. 3. Both the foam type and the suction cup type have disadvantages which will be now briefly discussed.
The foam type cushion pad is made of a foam material so that it is resilient, providing a very comfortable engagement with the wearer's face skin around the eye socket. Further, the foam material may properly dissipate heat generated by the wearer's skin. However, the foam material is poor in providing hermetic and thus water leakage proof attachment to the wearer's skin. Such a property is a basic requirement for swimming goggles and to provide such a property, upon contact with the wearer's skin when the swimming goggles are being worn, the goggles should be capable of expelling the air between the goggles and the wearer's face which, together with the compliance of the cushion pad with the wearer's face, provides the desired water tight engagement with the wearer's face. Since the foam cushion pad is in general formed as a block, it is difticult to compliantly engage with the wearer's face and almost impossible to expel air from inside the goggles so that it only creates a very poor water leakage proof attachment to the wearer's face.
On the other hand, the suction cup type cushion pad, is usually made of rubber or thermoplastic plastics so as to be capable of providing an excellent hermetic or water leakage proof property. The suction cup type cushion pad usually has a J-shaped cross section which allows the cushion pad to collapse upon contact with the wearer's face so that it is helpful in expelling air from inside the goggles. Further, the suction cup type cushion pad comprises a thin flange to be contacted by the wearer's face which may Immediately comform to the face skin around the eye socket of the wearer while expelling air out of the goggles so as to achieve an excellent hermetic or water leakage proof attachment to the wearer's face. However, the rubber or plastics cushion pad can cause an uncomfortable contact between the cushion pad and the wearer's face. Further since the suction cup type cushion pad provides a very good hermetic engagement with wearer's face skin, which may provide a persistent negative pressure inside the goggles, the negative pressure condition inside the goggles causes stress on the eye socket. Further, such a good hermetic engagement achieved by means of the negative pressure inside the goggles also makes it more difficult and uncomfortable in taking off the goggles. Thus, as compared with the foam type cushion pad, the suction cup type cushion pad is poor in providing a comfortable engagement with the wearer's face.
Thus, it is desired to provide a swimming goggle cushion pad which has the advantages of both the foam type cushion pad and the suction cup type cushion pad.